When one hears about cosmetic surgery, it is often assumed that it is a thing for either celebrities or the elite rich. It being a planned surgery and not being covered under any insurance, feels like sometimes it is too expensive. This is an article to give the readers a few insights into what goes into deciding the price of any cosmetic surgery and why compromising on the basis of price alone can sometimes be more expensive.

Now let’s break it down to the components that you pay for during the surgery.

1. You must remember that it IS A SURGERY!! This implies that it cannot be done in a doctor’s small procedure room. These surgeries need to be done in a surgical operation theatre (O.T.). These O.T.s are fully equipped to give you general anaesthesia with the right anaesthesia machines and have the means to monitor you when you are under. Here itself you will find a difference in the quality between the good centres that put patient safety first and not quite good places where it is assumed that nothing will go wrong. The good centres will also have some other equipment in the O.T.s such as a warmer, a DVT pump and a defibrillator which increase patient safety during the surgeries. The other technologies that add to the result of the patient are the advanced technologies used in liposuction such as a Power Assisted Liposuction (PAL) device, and other such devices. Now all of this is very important as a patient’s safety in a cosmetic surgery needs to be the priority, no matter what!

2. The cost of staying overnight in a room. You go to a hotel, where you are not looked after medically by professional staff, you are not given medications (food yes but mostly only breakfast, here we give you medications all through the day!!). The beds in our rooms are hi-tech for your postoperative comfort. And most of the times all of this is at half the cost of a 5-star hotel room.

3. You will be paying for the medicines. It would either be a part of your package or you may have to pay at the pharmacy if it is not. These medicines will include those given for your anaesthesia including oxygen, antibiotics, pain killers, antacids and meds to prevent you from feeling nauseous or throwing up amongst others.

4. the cost of the overheads that need to be factored in, such as the rent of the place, the electricity and water charges (all of these at commercial rates), the permissions needed to run a hospital from the local government, as also the maintenance and upkeep needed to smoothly run the place.

5. The cost of the trained and courteous staffs including, nurses, O.T assistants and technicians and cleaning staff. It also includes the front desk staff to man the phones and answer your queries as also the backend staff that helps us do what we do without a hitch including the people who look after stocking, the accounts person, the laundry, the sterilisation and the ward boys.

6. Now last are the charges for the doctors. This includes the surgeon, many a times two surgeons and an anaesthesiologist at the bare minimum. It sometimes also includes a physician and a physiotherapist to give you their expertise. Starting with a senior anaesthesiologist, he has spent a lot of his life learning how to keep you safe. Perhaps the most important person who is literally the one keeping you alive when you are under anaesthesia. Makes sense to pay the guy/gal well, doesn’t it!

Lastly, hopefully not the least bit important is the plastic surgeon. Now to become a plastic surgeon in India you usually need to be a triple graduate (So look out for the doctor’s degrees and not the tag they work under) with additional years of bonded service and of course a few fellowships. This entirely takes about 14-15 years of study bare minimum. But it does not stop here, every year we need to go and attend conferences and workshops to keep our knowledge up-to-date and skills polished. Now these conferences themselves (even the ones in India) cost a huge amount. On top of this, factor the years and years of experience that the plastic surgeon has gathered. So, when you are paying for a plastic cosmetic surgeon you are paying for the years he/she has toiled and sacrificed to get their hands and their minds to the level where you can be confident to give your bodies in their hands.

7. Finally, being a cosmetic surgery this also includes a whopping 18% GST (taxes). (Can’t do anything for this.)

This is what goes into your bill that you pay for a cosmetic surgery at a good centre. This is a once in a lifetime surgery that you will be doing. So compromise on a few dinner dates and movies and maybe a foreign trip but if you are planning to get a cosmetic surgery done, do not compromise on the surgeon. If you don’t have the money, save up for some more time and then get it done. DO NOT COMPROMISE!!